MEMO OF TRANSMITTAL

To: George Hughes

From: Justin Dzoan
Date: March 7, 2016
Subject: Recommendation Report to Make Parking More Accessible for Students and Staff
This memo is followed by my recommendation report pertaining to soluble strategies that will
make parking on the Cal Poly campus more accessible for students and staff. The purpose of this
report is to notify Cal Poly that the scarce amount of parking spots is making it difficult for
students to park and go to class.
Recommendations
I came up with two solutions that could improve Cal Polys parking problem. I address them in
my report and provide credible sources to back them up. The recommendations are below:
1. Build more lots with most of the barren land Cal Poly owns.
2. Build parking structures on the existing lots now.
Methods
I provide several different methods to provide credible sources for my topic. My methods are
below:
1. Interview with University Police Department
2. Cal Poly to move forward with grand Avenue housing project
3. Cal Poly trying to build faculty and staff housing on Grand Avenue- Mustang News
4. Armstrong announces plan to curb enrollment growth- Mustang News
5. A series of unfortunate parking events- Mustang News
6. Cal Poly Quick Facts Find Out About Academics, Student Body, Campus Size,
History, Graduates & Careers, Buildings and More
7. Poll of Cal Poly Students
Results
In the Results section, I explain all the conclusions I came to from my methods. The Results
section explains my results from all my methods. In the Conclusion section, I wrap up
everything I have done in total to prove my solutions credible.
Final Recommendation
The final recommendation I have concluded on is for Cal Poly to create five-story parking
structures in the existing parking lots by the baseball fields and tennis courts to increase the
amount of parking spots. This will increase the number of parking spots by 4-5 times the amount
there is now.

__________________________

RECOMMENDATION REPORT

__________________________
Strategies to Make Parking more Accessible for
Cal Poly Students and Staff.

Written by: Justin Dzoan

Written to: Cal Poly Administration and Parking Services
Date Submitted: 07-March-2016

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION........................................................................................................................ 4
1. Background......................................................................................................................... 4
METHODS. 5-6
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.

Interview with George Hughes of the University Police Department 5

"Cal Poly to move forward with Grand Avenue housing project". 5
"Cal Poly trying to build faculty and staff housing on Grand Avenue - Mustang News".. 5
"Armstrong announces plan to curb enrollment growth - Mustang News" 5
A series of unfortunate parking events- Mustang News. 5
"Cal Poly Quick Facts - Find Out About Academics, Student Body, Campus Size,
History, Graduates & Careers, Buildings and More. 6
7. Poll of Cal Poly Students.... 6
RESULTS.. 6-8
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.

Interview with George Hughes of the University Police Department 6

"Cal Poly to move forward with Grand Avenue housing project".. 6-7
"Cal Poly trying to build faculty and staff housing on Grand Avenue - Mustang News".. 7
"Armstrong announces plan to curb enrollment growth - Mustang News" 7
A series of unfortunate parking events- Mustang News.. 7-8
"Cal Poly Quick Facts - Find Out About Academics, Student Body, Campus Size,
History, Graduates & Careers, Buildings and More. 8
7. Poll of Cal Poly Students.... 8
CONCLUSION........................................................................................................................ 9-10
RECOMMENDATION.. 10
APPENDICES 11-12
1. APPENDIX A: INTERVIEW WITH GEORGE HUGHES OF THE UNIVERSITY
POLICE DEPARTMENT 11
2. APPENDIX B: PARKING POLL 12
REFERENCES 13
FIGURES REFERENCED 14
TABLE OF FIGURES
FIGURE 1: Results of Poll of Cal Poly Students.. 8

INTRODUCTION
Parking on campus at Cal Poly has become an inconvenience to myself and many Cal Poly
students. With 20,186 students attending Cal Poly in Fall 2014, there are not enough parking
spots for everyone [6].
Yearly parking passes get sold out so quickly and students like myself have to pay weekly for a
parking pass. Even students with a yearly or quarterly pass can not be guaranteed a parking spot
on campus because people end up buying the weekly parking passes and take their spots.
Id like to make it known to the Cal Poly Administration and Parking Services that this problem
at hand could be solved. With an understanding of each others needs, this situation will be easily
eliminated. My two solutions for this problem are to have Cal Poly build parking structures in
every parking lot to add more spots or to use some of the land Cal Poly owns to build more lots.
The parking structures will add 5 stories of extra space each and the extra lots will add more
parking spots. I plan to talk about this in the rest of my report.
Background
President Armstrong announced that the decision for a new freshman housing project would take
place at the Cal Poly Grand Avenue entrance in 2015 and is hoping to finish it by the fall of 2018
[2].
This 1,475 bedroom, four-to-five- story dorm building is currently being built on a parking lot
that can no longer be in use because of this construction. 1,324 parking spaces are now no longer
available to students and staff and this is causing a stir in the Cal Poly community [2].
Statistically, before this housing project, only 850 spaces were used in this former lot on a daily
average and because of construction, these spaces are not available any more [2].
A bright side is that in addition to the new freshmen dorms, there will be a new parking structure,
offices, a community lounge, a coffee shop, or a welcoming center. But this new parking
structure, that will be finished in 2018, will only have at least 366 spaces up to 500 spaces. After
comparing the numbers, there are still 350 students at least that are unaccounted for without a
parking spot [2].
The California State System is encouraging all of its schools in its system to increase enrollment
rates, but President Armstrong is not planning on doing so [3]. He only wants to accept as many
students as those who graduate or leave. This solution will not cause parking to get worse than it
already is which is a good sign of improvement.
Seeking for more improvement in the current situation, my recommendations to have parking
more accessible to all Cal Poly students and staff are:
1. Build more lots with most of the barren land Cal Poly owns.
2. Build parking structures on the existing lots now.
Following the introduction and background, this report will include methods, conclusions, and
recommendations.

METHODS
Different methods were put in use in this recommendation report. One of the methods presented
is an interview with the University Police Department. Other methods were online resources that
helped provide the background information needed to provide credibility in my report.
Interview with George Hughes of the University Police Department
To get a higher authoritys opinion on the parking issue, I interviewed the chief of police, George
Hughes. He is constantly in the midst of this situation because he has to give out tickets to cars
that do not have permits. Many cars park without permits and because there are not enough
parking spots, students with parking permits are not able to find spots. George is a credible
source for my topic because him and his staff understand the lack of parking spots for students
because they constantly patrol all the parking lots for cars parked illegally. With the information
obtained from George Hughes, I can provide accurate information about parking statistics and
find soluble ways to help students have easier access to parking. Refer to Appendix A:
Interview with George Hughes of the University Police Department, for the interview question
and responses [1].
Online Resources
In addition to the interview, I went on to research for articles pertaining to Cal Polys parking
situation. I was able to find articles that mapped out the future plans for Cal Polys freshman
dorms that are currently affecting the parking here and found out their future plans for more
parking spots.
1. "Cal Poly to move forward with Grand Avenue housing project" by Nick Wilson, writer
for the Tribune.
This is the first article I found pertaining to Cal Polys housing project for the freshmen
class of 2018. It gave me a lot of information on the situation with parking now and how
it would be in the future. [2]
2. "Cal Poly trying to build faculty and staff housing on Grand Avenue - Mustang News" by
Elena Wasserman, writer for Mustang News.
This article backed up my first article. It gave President Armstrongs view on this housing
project he approved. [3]
3. "Armstrong announces plan to curb enrollment growth - Mustang News" by Olivia
Profitt, a writer for Mustang News.
This articles explains how many students Cal Poly plans on accepting next year. This
helps with my recommendation report because now I know where this situation is headed
toward next year and that it will not get worse. [4]
4. A series of unfortunate parking events- Mustang News by Daniel Park, a Mustang
News columnist.
This article is a personal story about the author that explains how he feels about parking
on campus. This article helps me appeal to the students that have trouble with parking
because everyone has a similar problem to Daniel Parks. [5]

5. "Cal Poly Quick Facts - Find Out About Academics, Student Body, Campus Size,
History, Graduates & Careers, Buildings and More by Calpolynews.calpoly.edu.
This website updated me with statistics of Cal Poly and made me knowledgeable about
Cal Polys population and campus size. [6]
Poll of Cal Poly Students
I conducted a poll asking 50 Cal Poly students how long it takes for them to find a parking spot
at Cal Poly. Of course, different times of the days have different traffic flows, but I asked Cal
Poly students in general on average how long does it take to find a parking spot.
This poll would convey the personal struggle for Cal Poly students parking on campus. I
conducted an online poll on Facebook and asked students face-to-face as well to seek results. For
information about the survey conducted, refer to Appendix B: Parking Poll. [7].
RESULTS
Interview with George Hughes of the University Police Department
My interview with George Hughes of the University Police Department proved to be a
worthwhile visit. I asked Hughes, the chief of police, if parking has become a nuisance to them.
The response was that parking has become so tight because of the lack of parking spaces now.
More tickets have been given out because of students parking illegally without parking permits
and they take the spots of students who pay for their permits.
I offered my solutions to George Hughes and he gave me pros and cons for these ideas. He
agreed that if these two solutions were completely feasible then it would be very beneficial.
The idea for building new parking lots in barren land that Cal Poly owns would be a great use of
space and would solve all problems pertaining to parking, but George was not sure where Cal
Poly is with their funds and how the Agriculture department would react to this. The solution that
would become the biggest change in the Cal Poly community is if new parking structures would
be built in the parking lots now by the baseball field. George believed this to be a great idea, but
once again a lot of time would have to be invested to go through with this and funds are also a
problem.
Besides these solutions, George thinks the system now is satisfactory. Everyone is able to live
with it now and it saves Cal Poly time and money.

Online Resources
1. "Cal Poly to move forward with Grand Avenue housing project" by Nick Wilson, writer
for the Tribune.
This article in The Tribune brings up awareness of the new housing project President
Armstrong decided on pursuing. Many students are aware of this housing project as it is
right in front of many of the dorms and in front of VGs, the cafeteria. The article
explains exactly what is being built on the site of what used to be a parking lot. It also

holds for us the future of this construction and answers any questions on what is hoping
to be accomplished.
It helped me understand what Cal Poly is gaining and losing from this project. Gaining
new housing and new offices, and losing many parking spots until the completion date in
the fall of 2018. A new parking structure will be made, but not nearly as many spots
would be available as there used to be. [2]
2. "Cal Poly trying to build faculty and staff housing on Grand Avenue - Mustang News" by
Elena Wasserman, writer for Mustang News.
This article gave me more of what Presidents Armstrongs thoughts about the project
were. It leaned toward more of a Q&A based article with President Armstrong. It
concentrated on President Armstrongs personal goals and plans for the future of Cal
Poly.
It also shows how the employees and others of Cal Poly felt about the housing project.
Overall this article helped me understand a more general staff perspective and the goals
set for this construction. [3]
3. "Armstrong announces plan to curb enrollment growth - Mustang News" by Olivia
Profitt, a writer for Mustang News.
The main premise of this article does not pertain to housing at all, but instead the
enrollment growth of Cal Poly. Cal Poly has an increasing rate of incoming students per
year and this article focuses on this topic.
The CSU system is aiming for every CSU to increase its enrollment rate by a certain
percentage each year. President Armstrong is against this and would rather keep the same
size incoming freshman and transfer class as the graduating class. He wants Cal Poly to
increase in size minimally over time because he believes that is the best way to handle
this campus with this many students.
This definitely is a good sign pertaining to parking because even though there are
problems now with problems, imagine how much the problem would increase and how
drastic is would be if Cal Poly was increasing yearly by a larger percentage and we had
the same number of parking spots. It is a smart idea that President Armstrong is trying to
maintain the same school size yearly. [4]
4. A series of unfortunate parking events- Mustang News by Daniel Park
This article is a student article that trashes the parking availability here at Cal Poly. It is a
more biased article, but it helps others perceive how bad the problem is already. Students
can sympathize with other students.
The article uses crude humor to describe how the parking is at Cal Poly. It accurately
describes how a Cal Poly student feels about parking on campus. [5]

5. "Cal Poly Quick Facts - Find Out About Academics, Student Body, Campus Size,
History, Graduates & Careers, Buildings and More" by Calpolynews.calpoly.edu.
I had no idea how much land and property Cal Poly owned until I glanced upon this
website and stumbled on the fact that Cal Poly owns over 1,000 acres of land. Having this
much land, this helps me in the case of creating more parking lots for students.
This website also gave information about how many students are enrolled at Cal Poly, the
admission rate and how many students get in on average per year. This information aids
me in explaining how important and drastic this parking problem will become in the
future. It was already explained by President Armstrong that he would try to keep the
same admission rate as graduation rate in the following years. [6]
Poll of Cal Poly Students
After posting a poll online and asking students at school how long it takes for them to find a
parking spot at Cal Poly, I got 50 responses back. The results were that 68% of them said it took
them 5-10 minutes to find a spot. 20% said that it took them 10-15 minutes to find a spot and the
remaining 12% found a spot within 5 minutes [7].
With that being said, many students are having trouble finding a spot within 5 minutes. Driving
around for 10 minutes is a waste of time and if in a hurry for class, will cause a student to be
tardy. Students who drive to school are looking for an improvement in Cal Polys parking system
and are hoping to not spend over 10 minutes searching for an empty parking spot.
RESULTS OF POLL OF CAL

(Figure
1)

CONCLUSIONS
I plan on tackling the problem of there being not enough parking spaces for students. To go
forward in fixing this issue and to look for soluble options, there were several methods I used.
My interview with George Hughes of the University Police Department was helpful as it gave
me insight on the parking issue from a different perspective. I did not know whether the police or
staff saw the parking issue as a problem that affected them as it affected the students, but it did.
In my interview, we went over my solutions to help students and staff gain more accessibility to
parking and George Hughes helped me and told me what would and what would not work which
was extremely helpful in my report [1].
I used many sources online that provided me with a lot of information concerning Cal Polys new
freshman housing project [2]. This is a big deal because it took away a huge percentage of
parking spots for all of those who drive to school. These online sources also provided me with
quick facts about Cal Poly and some articles were personal articles written by writers of the
Mustang News.
A poll conducted online and in person at school was put in place to get personal feedback on how
long it takes for students to park at school. This research provided to be very helpful as it tends to
all other students who drive to school as well. Many other students who were not apart of this
research are most likely to have gone through the same struggle and this research will speak for
all of the students who drive to school [7].
My initial recommendations for making parking more accessible to students and staff of Cal Poly
were:
1. Build more lots with most of the barren land Cal Poly owns.
2. Build parking structures on the existing lots now.
Cal Poly owns 1,321 acres of land and only 155 acres are used [6]. Most of the rest is owned by
the Agricultural department. These two recommendations would be simple, but the biggest
obstacles would be money and time.
There are currently three different parking lots by the baseball fields that could hold multiple
five-story parking lots in each current lot or one huge structure. By having these parking
structures, the number of parking spots would increase by four-to-five times it is now. Students
would be able to drive to school and easily park without spending 15 minutes to find an open
parking spot. No one will have to endure what Daniel Park went through or goes through on the
daily [5]. This would benefit all students and staff who drive to school.
Transforming barren land into parking lots would be an easy solution because it would not get in
the way of any aspect of Cal Poly because it is away from buildings. But this would be a huge
project that would take a lot of time and a lot of money as well. Building parking structures is
very cost effective compared to transforming open land to creating new parking lots. The
problem is that the project would have to take place during the summer when there are not many

students because there would be no parking during the construction of the new parking
structures.
After careful consideration and research, my final recommendation is to build multiple parking
structures, or one huge parking structure in each existing lot during the summer.
RECOMMENDATION
I recommend that during the summer, Cal Poly needs to create large, five-story parking
structures in existing parking lots by the baseball field and tennis courts to tend to students and
staff.

10

APPENDIX A: INTERVIEW WITH GEORGE HUGHES OF THE UNIVERSITY

POLICE DEPARTMENT
During my interview with the George Hughes of the University Police Department, I asked a
series of questions pertaining to the parking situation at Cal Poly. Below are the following
questions:
1. Do you think there are a scarce amount of parking spots available to students?
2. Do the limited number of spots affect the students?
3. Would an increase in spots be beneficial to students?
4. Do you think it would increase the number of parking tickets at all since more yearly
passes will be available?
5. Did the new freshman housing project on Grand Ave. affect the parking situation
immensely?
6. Is there a problem with staff parking as well?
7. How many parking tickets are written per quarter?
8. Should there be a change?
9. Would creating new parking lots be beneficial?
10. Would creating parking structures in each lot be beneficial?

11

APPENDIX B: PARKING POLL

I conducted an online poll on Facebook and had Cal Poly students select how long it takes for
them to find a parking spot. I did not reach my goal of 50 students so I proceeded to conduct a
personal poll on campus by asking students face to face. Below is the poll:
How long does it take to park on Cal Polys campus if you drive?

0-5 minutes?

5-10 minutes?

10-15 minutes?

12

REFERENCES
[1]. George Hughes of the University Police Department, Interview with George Hughes of the
University Police Department, 03-March-2016.
[2]. N. Wilson, "Cal Poly to move forward with Grand Avenue housing project", sanluisobispo,
2016. [Online]. Available:
http://www.sanluisobispo.com/news/local/education/article39465813.html. [Accessed: 02- Mar2016].
[3]. E. Wasserman, "Cal Poly trying to build faculty and staff housing on Grand Avenue Mustang News", Mustang News, 2016. [Online]. Available: http://mustangnews.net/cal-polytrying-to-build-faculty-and-staff-housing-on-grand-avenue/. [Accessed: 02- Mar- 2016].
[4]. O. Proffit, "Armstrong announces plan to curb enrollment growth - Mustang News",
Mustang News, 2015. [Online]. Available: http://mustangnews.net/armstrong-announces-calpoly-curb-enrollment-growth/. [Accessed: 07- Mar- 2016].
[5]. D. Park, "A series of unfortunate parking events - Mustang News", Mustang News, 2016.
[Online]. Available: http://mustangnews.net/a-series-of-unfortunate-parking-events/. [Accessed:
07- Mar- 2016].
[6]. "Cal Poly Quick Facts - Find Out About Academics, Student Body, Campus Size, History,
Graduates & Careers, Buildings and More", Calpolynews.calpoly.edu, 2016. [Online]. Available:
http://calpolynews.calpoly.edu/quickfacts.html. [Accessed: 07- Mar- 2016].
[7]. Cal Poly Students, Parking Poll, Poll. 04-March-2016.

13

FIGURES REFERENCED
[8]. Figure 1. Results of Poll of Cal Poly Students, www.meta-chart.com/pie, 05-March-2016

14